What is making you happy right now

[Aimless]

I no longer qualify for free e-file with the IRS.

wait is this a good thing or a bad thing

[Loki]

It means he's no longer one of the poors.

[Ominous Gamer]

Free file fillable forms are the way to go... Unless your taxes are horribly complex.

With the foster, crypto, and home sale we went with taxslayer to save time. Worth the $20 imo.

[Dreadnaught]

Feels weird. My wife—like most Swedes, I guess—grew up living in houses, but I've only experienced the apartment dweller's occasionally cramped but otherwise carefree life. About to have an identity crisis now.

Cleaning that fireplace is gonna be your first moment of "ugh"

[Aimless]

It means he's no longer one of the poors.

just tryna remind y'all the US is a third-world country

Cleaning that fireplace is gonna be your first moment of "ugh"

Tbf we'll probably almost never use it

[wiggin]

With the foster, crypto, and home sale we went with taxslayer to save time. Worth the $20 imo.

Ah, I have taxes that while relatively uncomplicated get rather more expensive to file with software because I have some small side gigs. I think I'd pay $85 with Taxslayer.

I also don't like how low detail the questioning is for most tax software. I tried out H&R block (but didn't file) and realize I have a much, much better handle on my taxes because I directly use the forms/instructions.

I'll be itemizing next year, though, so I'll definitely pay up then. Too much of a pain otherwise.

[Hazir]

Congratulations on the purchase Aimless.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind about having to pay to file for taxes. How's that a thing? I can understand paying for getting the most out of it, but not qualifying for filing for free?

P. S. I'll be doing that next week. It mostly consists of a process of verification of the information the tax office has on me.

[wiggin]

Hazir, you can file for free. But if you want to use third party software that holds your hand through the process, you can only get it for free if your income is below a certain threshold - or you use certain services that essentially use your financial data to sell you stuff (the most free option right now is provided by cash app this year). You can always file electronically or by paper for free, you just won't get any help to do it.

[Aimless]

Twitter Link

Trust me—it's worth it

[Flixy]

It will never beat the recreation of a neanderthal voice:

[Aimless]

My daughter's in the living-room trying to teach her doll to say "yellow parallelogram"

It will never beat the recreation of a neanderthal voice:

I still can't believe that's not from a satirical movie... the poor guy, just look at his eyes

[GGT]

Hazir, you can file for free. But if you want to use third party software that holds your hand through the process, you can only get it for free if your income is below a certain threshold - or you use certain services that essentially use your financial data to sell you stuff (the most free option right now is provided by cash app this year). You can always file electronically or by paper for free, you just won't get any help to do it.

The tax filing system in the US is fairly complicated, thanks to the PACs that lobby legislatures. My CPA decided to retire this year, because his small firm was spending too much time keeping up with legislative changes (that couldn't be passed onto his clients by raising rates). It's the same phenomenon that made Bookkeepers obsolete.

I think the promise of "democratization" in the tax filing sphere has been overblown, even exploited by Big Tech, but hasn't done a damn thing to make filing easier, let alone "free".

[Aimless]

For a long time now, I've been fighting an uphill battle against Swedes who think that a person loses their refugee status or right to asylum by not applying for asylum at the first ostensibly safe country. A while back, I discovered that many of these racists had gotten the idea that the Dublin regulation states that people seeking asylum MUST seek asylum in the first Dublin country they enter... from the official website of the Swedish Migration Agency. The agency made this incorrect claim right under the main heading, and, even though a later paragraph indicated that the reality something else entirely, racists were able to effectively use that page and screenshots of it to support the position that hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in Sweden weren't legitimate refugees and asylum seekers.

Today, after a concerted push, I and a couple of other dorks were able to make the Migration Agency concede that the information was false, and to correct the information on their website. Relieved, vindicated, but almost dying from fremdschämen at the thought of a govt. agency helping racists for several years through sheer stupidity.

[Hazir]

Seems like covid-19 is mostly behind me.

[Hazir]

For a long time now, I've been fighting an uphill battle against Swedes who think that a person loses their refugee status or right to asylum by not applying for asylum at the first ostensibly safe country. A while back, I discovered that many of these racists had gotten the idea that the Dublin regulation states that people seeking asylum MUST seek asylum in the first Dublin country they enter... from the official website of the Swedish Migration Agency. The agency made this incorrect claim right under the main heading, and, even though a later paragraph indicated that the reality something else entirely, racists were able to effectively use that page and screenshots of it to support the position that hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in Sweden weren't legitimate refugees and asylum seekers.

Today, after a concerted push, I and a couple of other dorks were able to make the Migration Agency concede that the information was false, and to correct the information on their website. Relieved, vindicated, but almost dying from fremdschämen at the thought of a govt. agency helping racists for several years through sheer stupidity.

Congratulations. Did the corrections go as far as asserting that to be a refugee you don't have to make any application? That the application technically is merely a request upon a state party to recognize your status?

[Aimless]

Congratulations. Did the corrections go as far as asserting that to be a refugee you don't have to make any application? That the application technically is merely a request upon a state party to recognize your status?

That was already addressed on another part of their website. They acknowledge that the state's job is to—upon request—formally recognize the refugee status of someone who is a refugee, but the language is difficult to parse without prior knowledge. I guess it's just counter-intuitive for many people—after all, we had an ostensibly literate member of this forum who had difficulties appreciating that aspect of refugees' rights

Just staggering that blatant disinfo about asylum law was allowed to stand uncorrected for six years on the website of the very govt. institution tasked with informing people about their rights as asylum seekers—and, in a sense, also with safeguarding those rights.

[Aimless]

Flat finally up for sale

My wife has been quietly but compulsively hiding stuff in the basement so it was a nightmare to decorate before the shoot.

The interest hike will probably push down the final sale price by a couple of hundred thousand SEK, which is a bummer. On the other hand, it looks like our mortgage will be €200k smaller than expected so that's a relief. Just wanna get this over with never wanna move again, even if that means I'll have to live here forever. I've moved over a dozen times in my life, I am well and truly sated now.

[Flixy]

I got a kitten

[Loki]

Cat tax time.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/defi...term=Cat%20Tax

[Dreadnaught]

Please pay the cat tax Flixy

[Flixy]

[Hazir]

While doing some serious decluttering I found a bill for vaccinations I got in 2013. Guess what I thought when I saw I had had a refresher shot for Polio.

Decided to start with throwing out stuff that was just taking up space. The trigger for this was Ronald's description of the total failure developing at the places of a friend of ours in the USA. Ronald is there to support a hoarder with OCD who somehow thought he could manage moving home from the rental he's been filling up with stuff that might be useful to a condo he bought still containing everything the previous owner had left behind. That is not going very well. About 2 hours day is spent talking about things like the actual need or lack thereof of moving jars of 30 year old spices and what this person who doesn't even cook water for coffee might possibly do with these expired spices. These talks are cushioned by hours of daily counseling and regular consultations with a therapist.

The most likely solution will be that the contents of the rental will be moved to a storage unit for later selection. Which probably never will actually start as paying rent for storage is considerably less stressful than actually throwing out rubbish.

Things I have learned; the therapist gets $250 per hour, the term therapy-junkie, that our friend has more money to burn than I.

In case you wondered what happened to the jars: They were emptied and cleaned, so that their later use may be decided upon at a later time.

[Loki]

[Aimless]

So we've mostly moved in, and it looks like my mental image of the house & yard was a little misleading. There's much more usable/useful space both indoors and outdoors than I recalled/realized—so much so that it actually feels a little unsettling. But mostly absolutely incredible

[Loki]

Survived the first week of work in a non-academic setting. In a different state. Without any furniture.

[Ominous Gamer]

Got my first inflation check from Desantis

[wiggin]

Out of the blue, my boss told me that they're giving me a decent sized (6.5%) mid-year pay raise, because they're happy with my performance. Always nice to feel appreciated! I wonder if it's partially a 'we know inflation is high and we don't want you to go somewhere else', but I'm going to keep on believing it's just because they're happy I'm handling a bunch of nitty gritty technical issues that no one else wants to touch.

[Unheard Of]

Quit my job with a tech firm, moving back into biology next week. No more big corp bs for me!

[wiggin]

Every now and then, I am reminded how lucky I am to live where I do.

My son has had a long running immune-related GI problem that has necessitated all sorts of endoscopies, testing, and progressively increasing dietary restrictions to try to address it. It took a surprisingly short time for us to get a solid diagnosis and get connected with a specialist who focuses on the intersection of GI inflammation and allergies and specifically our son's issue. And this guy is amazing - he does both basic and clinical research as well as being a full time physician, and he can answer all of our questions with as much solid data as is available.

We visited him last week after another disappointing set of pathology results, and he told us that he thinks he can get us on a new treatment for this condition. It's not FDA approved for small kids yet, but he ran the Boston site for the pediatric clinical trial and saw the results (and safety profile) first hand; while the data is being processed and submitted for FDA approval, he thinks he can get us supply of the drug under e.g. compassionate use. I've looked at the data on the safety profile and efficacy and it looks fantastic.

I can't help thinking that if we lived in a part of the US (or world) with a less sophisticated/integrated healthcare system, we still wouldn't even know what my son's condition was, let alone have hot off the presses data and early access to a therapy that will literally be life changing. This hasn't been exactly a short or straightforward process, but even so he now has a clear path to a dramatically improved quality of life (and prevention of some pretty scary consequences in the future)... all because we were lucky enough to have extremely specialized (and well connected) healthcare providers.

[Dreadnaught]

I hope he can get into the trial and that it's effective!